A Distant Music

by BJ Hoff

  “Yes, I’m afraid we need to talk right away. It’s important.”

  The big miner frowned in renewed concern. “Well, you’re welcome to come home with me—”

  “No, I’m afraid that won’t do. I need to talk with you alone. My buggy’s close by. We can get out of the worst of this and talk there.”

  MacAuley lifted his miner’s cap, pushed a shock of dust-streaked red hair away from his forehead, and then set his cap back in place. “Ah, you don’t want me in your buggy, Mr. Stuart,” he said roughly, running a hand down over the front of his dusty jacket. “You’d be cleanin’ it for a week. Besides, it’ll be a bit warmer in the toolshed. Over here.”

  Jonathan followed him to a narrow, unpainted shack a few feet away. Some of the miners just coming out glanced at them curiously, spoke, and then went on.

  Inside, it was dark and damp, the floor and shelves littered with what looked to be mostly broken tools in a state of disrepair. On one entire wall, though, hung rows of shovels and picks and axes, along with assorted tools with tags suspended below each.

  “This will at least keep the rain and wind off us,” said MacAuley.

  He looked around, grabbed a piece of tarp, and spread it over a stool. “There you go.”

  Jonathan eyed the rickety piece of wood before lowering himself onto it.

  MacAuley leaned back against a workbench, watching him. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Stuart, you’ve got me worried some. What’s this about?”

  “I really wish you’d call me Jonathan. I’m sorry to worry you, but there’s something you need to know. I fear I’ve already let it go too long.”

  MacAuley crossed his brawny arms over his chest, his gaze steady and relentless.

  I would not want a man like this, Jonathan thought, as an enemy.

  “Then you’d better not wait any longer to be telling me, I expect,” said MacAuley.

  So Jonathan began his story.

  “And you believe the boy is keeping his silence for fear of what they might do to my Maggie?”

  Jonathan had heard the term “red rage” before today, but this was the first time he’d ever seen it for himself. MacAuley was pacing the narrow expanse of the toolshed like a caged tiger. A moment ago he had thrown his miner’s cap onto the workbench and was now raking a hand through his hair, layering it with the same black powder as his face and beard. Jonathan was certain that underneath the coal dust veneer the man’s skin was flushed with fury.

  “From what I overheard,” he said, “they’re keeping Kenny in tow by threatening to harm Maggie. And as I told you, I’m convinced they’ve already harassed her at least once.”

  MacAuley finally stopped pacing. “And now they intend to attack Maggie as well as the boy,” he said, his voice a low rumble in the drafty shed.

  “Yes,” Jonathan said, nearly choking on the memory of what he’d overheard. His heart was hammering, and he was finding it difficult to get his breath, but he didn’t want MacAuley to notice. “I asked Maggie and Kenny to stay and help clean up after the Christmas Exchange tomorrow evening. Now I don’t know that I should have. It will only mean their leaving the building later than the other children.”

  MacAuley squeezed his eyes shut and again balled his hands into fists. The very thought that his daughter might be victimized by these two bullies had to be in itself unbearable to a father. But to his credit, Matthew MacAuley seemed as concerned for Kenny Tallman as for his own child.

  “You actually heard them say they had attacked the Tallman lad?”

  “Oh, yes. More than once. There was no mistaking what they were talking about. And I’ve seen the evidence of it myself. The boy has a black eye, a broken lens in his glasses, and a sore arm. I’m ashamed to admit that my first thought was of his father, that he might have—”

  Jonathan didn’t finish, but MacAuley clearly understood what he was getting at.

  With a short nod, he again raked a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner, man? Why did you wait until now?”

  “Mr. MacAuley—”

  “‘Matthew,’” the other interrupted.

  “Matthew, I didn’t know what to do. It’s clear that both the boy and Maggie have been threatened. I believe Kenny took the beatings and kept quiet about it to prevent Maggie from being hurt, though I wonder if Maggie knows that. In any event, I’m fairly certain he swore her to silence too. It seems to me that each was set on protecting the other.” Jonathan paused. “They’re great friends, you know.”

  MacAuley scowled. “Well, the lass needs a friend with the wee Rankin child gone. But I’d just as soon she wouldn’t have chosen the super’s son.”

  “They’ve been friends for a long time,” Jonathan said quietly. “Long before Summer died. And, Matthew, you can surely see what the Tallman boy is made of. I suppose we ought to be grateful he is such a good friend to Maggie.”

  The miner studied him for a moment, his eyes still burning. Then he expelled a long breath, saying, “Aye, I expect that’s true.”

  He shook his head as if to clear it. “Well, we’d best go to Tallman and get it over with. He has to know.”

  Jonathan’s heart lunged. In spite of the cold, a band of clammy perspiration broke out on his forehead, and his hands had begun to shake. He was growing weaker by the minute. “How well do you know Mr. Tallman?”

  MacAuley made a dismissive wave. “Nobody knows that one well. He’s the coldest devil I ever did meet, and that’s the truth!”

  “But surely he cares about his own son?”

  MacAuley’s answer didn’t come right away. He shook his head slowly, obviously thinking about Jonathan’s question. “It’s a terrible thing, but I’m not so sure. You’ve heard the tales about why his wife ran off?”

  Jonathan nodded. “I’ve heard the rumors, of course, but I’d rather not believe them. I can’t bear the thought of that fine boy living with such a man.”

  “Well, whether Tallman is as bad as he’s been made out to be or not, I doubt he’d tolerate any ill-treatment of his son or anything else that belongs to him,” said MacAuley, his tone cynical. “He’s a proud sort.”

  He stopped. “It’s not that I need the likes of Tallman to help me put an end to this, mind. I expect I could handle those two no-accounts and not break a sweat, no matter how tough they think they are. But this involves Tallman’s son, not just my girl, and by all that’s right, he needs to know what’s going on. So no matter how he takes it, we’ll need to tell him the whole story.”

  MacAuley scooped up his cap from the workbench and set it back on his head.

  “You don’t have to involve yourself with Tallman, Matthew,” said Jonathan. “I’m quite capable of dealing with him by myself. Besides, if there’s any chance it could affect your job—”

  MacAuley’s mouth turned down at the corners. “With all due respect, Mr. Stuart—Jonathan—I don’t believe you ought to face Tallman alone with this. I doubt you’re accustomed to dealing with his kind. As for my job, that’s not your worry. My Maggie is what’s important here.”

  Jonathan knew himself to be put in his place, kindly but firmly. Besides, he wasn’t about to argue. As long as he was going into the lion’s den, it couldn’t hurt to have a gladiator at his side.

  Judson Tallman’s initial calm had been almost maddening.

  Jonathan thought he actually preferred the mine superintendent’s expression of the moment—an unmistakable tight-lipped, white-knuckled fury.

  He had met this man only a few times. Tallman wasn’t one to attend school functions or drop in every now and then to check on his son’s progress. The few times they’d met had been by accident—a chance encounter in town or at the company store.

  Jonathan was accustomed to two fairly common types of behavior where he was concerned: either an awkward deference—which he disliked and lamented—on the part of those with little or no education who seemed to view him as some sort of an oddity; or a far more agreeable cordiality from mos
t of the parents and townsfolk, those who actually seemed to appreciate his interest in and efforts on behalf of their children.

  Tallman had never exhibited either mode of conduct. Instead, he commonly eyed Jonathan much as he might have a piece of furniture—as a purely functional object and thereby of no real interest.

  At the moment, however, the mine superintendent looked for all the world as if he would like to hurl the massive iron paperweight from his desk at either Jonathan or Matthew MacAuley.

  MacAuley’s composure was plainly disintegrating by the second. Jonathan could actually hear the big miner’s knuckles cracking as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

  Presumably so he wouldn’t be tempted to leap across the desk and trounce his employer.

  Tallman’s next statement very nearly broke Jonathan’s control.

  “So what you’re saying is that my boy has been allowing himself to be beaten up rather than fighting back.”

  The Welsh accent was even thicker as Tallman shrugged and added, “No surprise, that. I’ve done my best with him, but he’s weak. Always has been.”

  Anger flared in Jonathan like a straw fire. He let out a sharp breath, ready to defend Kenny, but MacAuley put a hand to his arm and spoke before Jonathan could.

  “Did you not hear anything Mr. Stuart here has said, man?” His voice was rough as gravel. “Your boy is anything but weak!”

  “My boy is none of your business, MacAuley,” he said tersely.

  “That’s true enough, Tallman, but my daughter is my business, and they’re both at risk if we don’t do something. I mean to put a stop to this before either of them gets hurt—again—and I’m thinking you might be wanting to come along since your son is in just as much danger as my daughter.”

  The man actually shrugged. “The boy has to learn sooner or later to take his punishment if he won’t fight his own battles. He can’t stay a weak sister all his life.”

  Jonathan had never in his life been close to striking another human being until this moment. “Good heavens, man, can you really be that foolish?” he blurted out. “That heartless?”

  Tallman went pale, his eyes like two dark marbles against his ashen skin. MacAuley again spoke before Jonathan could. “Don’t you understand, Tallman? Your son is taking his punishment! And he’s been taking my Maggie’s punishment as well! He’s anything but a ‘weak sister’! He’s the bravest lad in that entire school! Let me tell you something. Being a man isn’t about fighting. It’s about character. You obviously don’t know your own son at all or you’d have realized long before now that he has the kind of character—the kind of courage—most grown men would envy.” MacAuley stopped only long enough to get a breath. “Open your eyes, man. You have a son to be proud of!”

  Tallman’s heavy eyebrows knit together as he stared at Matthew MacAuley. “What do you mean, he’s been taking the girl’s punishment?”

  “Just what Mr. Stuart has been trying to tell you!” MacAuley shot back. “Those two—bounders—they’ve been threatening your boy all along that if he rats on them about the beatings, they’ll take it out on my Maggie. And now it seems they intend to go after her and your boy. Tomorrow night!”

  MacAuley leaned forward and splayed his hands on Tallman’s desk. The mine superintendent braced himself against the back of his chair as if he feared he was about to be struck.

  “Your son is no weakling, Tallman,” said MacAuley, his voice low but hard as stone. “He’s as brave as any man working your mine, and then some. You must be blind not to see it!”

  Tallman went white-lipped with anger. “You forget yourself, MacAuley.”

  The big Irishman pointed a finger at the mine superintendent. “Not for a heartbeat. But don’t you threaten me, or I just might forget myself.”

  Silence hung heavy in the room. MacAuley’s breathing was loud and ragged. The pain in Jonathan’s chest threatened to topple him, and his own breath was coming in quick, sharp gasps.

  Suddenly, Matthew MacAuley let out a sound of disgust and, whipping around with his back to Tallman, grated out, “Ah, let’s get out of here, Mr. Stuart! I’ll handle this on my own.”

  Jonathan didn’t quite know what to do. He glanced back at Judson Tallman and saw with surprise that the man’s features had gone slack, the anger in his eyes of only a moment before now giving way to a look of confusion.

  “I only mean to raise him to be a man, to be strong,” Tallman said vaguely, as if no one else were in the room and he was speaking to himself. “A weak man will be destroyed. Either by himself or by someone else.”

  He seemed to rouse then, sitting up a little straighter. “You think I don’t care about my son?”

  “Well, that’s how it would seem,” said MacAuley, his eyes flashing, his tone laced with acid. “And that’s exactly what you have the whole town thinking.”

  The other stirred in his chair. “Things aren’t always as they appear,” he said bitterly. “You think I don’t know what they say about me? About my wife? You think I haven’t heard their stories?”

  MacAuley broke in. “Not everyone believes what they hear, man. But right now I don’t give a whit about your wife or the stories or anything else except my daughter and your son. They need help. They need our help! Now, are you going to help or not? That’s all I want to know.”

  Tallman stared at Matthew MacAuley, and for the first time Jonathan saw a look of regret, perhaps even shame, come over the man. At one point he lowered his gaze as if unable to meet the other’s.

  Jonathan held his breath. But when Tallman again looked up, he slowly nodded, passed a hand over his eyes, and said, “Of course I’ll help. Tell me what you think we should do.”

  MacAuley looked at Jonathan, who quickly deferred to him with a turn of his hand.

  “All right, then,” MacAuley said. “We can stop this, but not without a price. And before we go any further, I want your word that the fathers of these two boys won’t be penalized for their sons’ behavior.”

  Tallman bristled. “They have to pay—”

  “The boys have to pay,” MacAuley broke in. “Not their fathers. No matter what they’ve done or not done to raise such no-accounts, those men need their jobs. They have wives and other children to take care of.”

  Finally, Tallman inclined his head in agreement.

  MacAuley then turned to Jonathan. “Mr. Stuart, I know that you’re not well. You don’t need to be a part of this. If you’d like to go on home now, that’s fine. We’ll work it out from here.”

  For just an instant, Jonathan was tempted. But only for an instant.

  “Thank you, Matthew,” he said. “And you’re right, of course, about my not being well. Nevertheless, I’m going with you. I have to be there.”

  MacAuley studied him for another second or two and then nodded. “I understand.”

  Jonathan knew he did.

  Twenty-Six

  Night Wind

  I hear all night as through a storm

  Hoarse voices calling, calling

  My name upon the wind…

  James Clarence Mangan

  Jonathan kept the children as long as he could after the gift exchange on Friday. It was imperative that he allow enough time for the miners on the evening shift to clear out—and for Matthew MacAuley and Judson Tallman to get to the tipple afterward.

  Knowing it would be dark by the time the students finished exchanging their gifts and had their refreshments, he had made sure everyone whose parents couldn’t come after them had a friend to walk home with. But one of the Pippino’s boy’s responsibilities was to stay later and help clean up, so by the time he was ready to leave, everyone else was gone.

  Maggie and Kenny volunteered to see Pip home, but Jonathan didn’t quite know what to do. He hadn’t planned for Pip. Although the boy was probably used to getting around on his own at night, he wasn’t about to send him off in the dark alone. Skingle Creek had always been a safe little town, but it was still a mining town, with the o
ccasional stranger passing through in search of work or a handout. It didn’t pay to take chances.

  On the other hand, if he sent him with Kenny and Maggie, he was placing the boy in known jeopardy. In the end, it seemed he had no choice. He tried to tell himself Pip would be safe enough; the plan was for the men to be in place long before the children drew anywhere near the tipple. Even so, uneasiness plagued him the rest of the evening.

  When the time came to leave, Jonathan issued a stern warning to be careful, and then he sent the three of them off with their items from the gift exchange, as well as a small sack he’d prepared for each student with some rock candy and apples. In addition, his mother had supplied an embroidered handkerchief for each girl, and his father had sent some shiny new marbles for the boys.

  He was taken completely off guard when Pip turned back at the door and threw his arms around Jonathan’s middle in a warm hug. “Thank you, Mr. Stuart!” he blurted out in his broken English. “My mama and me, we pray and ask blessings for you every night for your kindness!”

  Warmth flooded Jonathan as he hugged the boy back. “Thank you, Pip. And please tell your mother I’m very grateful for her prayers. Very grateful indeed.”

  Jonathan stepped outside to watch them off, but only for a moment. As soon as they reached the end of the school yard, he went back inside the building just long enough to get his coat, extinguish the lamps, and lock up. Then, moving as quickly as he could, he started for the buggy.

  Matthew had cautioned him to give the children at least a ten-minute lead before he left the school, to make sure he didn’t meet up with them on the way. But Jonathan didn’t wait. He felt an almost desperate urgency to be in place before the three arrived at the tipple, and if he left now, he easily could be. He’d make certain their paths didn’t cross.

  He had never been this frightened before in his life. All he could think of as he climbed into the buggy was what would happen if Matthew and Tallman didn’t get there in time, if they were late. Too late. What could he possibly do without them?